By all accounts it was a nice day for a white wedding. On Sunday, Stephen Miller, Donald Trump’s top immigration adviser, married Katie Waldman. Waldman, who currently serves as Mike Pence’s press secretary, was formerly a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security under Kirstjen Nielsen.
Naturally, the loving couple held their nuptials, which the president attended, at one of his properties, Trump International Hotel in Washington DC.
News of the wedding was reported in the New York Times, much like any other run-of-the-mill, high-powered DC couple would be, hiding any mention of the pair’s ideology inside hyperlinks.
But it led to a raft of condemnation online, triggered by Miller’s position and record as one of the longest-serving members of the Trump administration, who has been the driving force behind policies such as the Muslim ban and the family separation policy at the border.
Last year, Democrats demanded Miller resign after hundreds of his emails promoting white nationalism to rightwing journalists were revealed. Meanwhile, Waldman has referred to asylum seekers at the border as a “violent mob of migrants” and accused them of attacking border agents. She has also dismissed groups of migrants traveling together as a media hoax.
The simplistic New York Times wedding announcement on the ceremony made for hostile comment.
saira rao
(@sairasameerarao)Stephen Miller is a white nationalist who has helped Trump concoct and execute violent racist and xenophobic policies.
The New York Times just ran an announcement of Miller’s wedding as though he’s an esteemed statesman.
This is how the mainstream media supports fascism.
Christopher Mathias
(@letsgomathias)Given everything we know about Stephen Miller, seems a massive abdication of journalistic duty to publish a normalizing announcement of his wedding in @nytimesvows, and to publish said announcement with no mention that he’s a white nationalist https://t.co/RK35xWK7V5 pic.twitter.com/N95UyNhSYq
Comedians had a field day.
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee seized upon the news of the wedding to launch a registry in their honor.
“Stephen Miller has made it his life’s mission to strip all compassion and understanding from US immigration policy,” it reads.
“As a thank you, we at Full Frontal want to get him a wedding present that we know he’ll hate.” Included is a wishlist of items from charities who help asylum seekers and migrants such as mittens, underwear and socks.
Critics pulled no punches.
Richard W. Painter
(@RWPUSA)He’s our Joseph Goebbels.
Will she be our Magda Goebbels?Who is Katie Waldman? Four facts about Stephen Miller’s wife after pair’s wedding at Trump Hotel https://t.co/WtWLcSxlBm
Barbara Malmet
(@B52Malmet)Katie Waldman and Stephen Miller Wed at Trump Hotel – when you marry the architect of cruelty, the banality of evil, the chief racist next to the Racist-in-Chief, is your wedding dress made from the tears of traumatized immigrant children? Is it true love? https://t.co/gdyqN86hGg
Even the political symbolism of the wedding singer came under scrutiny.
nikki mccann ramírez
(@NikkiMcR)Stephen Miller had an Elvis impersonator at his wedding in an homage to another man who stomped on POC to build a career. pic.twitter.com/yQ7IiDVTip
Though the bride herself did not seem put off.
Katie Rose Miller
(@katiewaldman)The most perfect day, the most perfect man surrounded with more love than we both could have ever dreamed.
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Miller
2.16.20 pic.twitter.com/hMu6joPbN3
The truth is that US immigration policy is no laughing matter.
Over two-thirds of migrants fleeing Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador suffered the murder, kidnapping or disappearance of a loved one before leaving, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Dozens of migrants have died in Ice custody during the Trump administration. At least 200 migrants deported to El Salvador have been raped, murdered, or tortured.
